The Brightest Flames
by avanti90
Summary: Barrayar's civil war is over, and Kareen begins to recover. Aral/Kareen set in an alternate universe, pre-Shards of Honor.


Kareen stood alone at the window, looking down at the scene in the Great Square. Ges Vorrutyer's execution was proving to be a slow and hideous spectacle, yet the square was crowded despite the harsh winter morning. The dilapidated paving stones still bore unmistakable signs of plasma fire, legacies of vicious battles over the last year.

_That is over now,_ she reminded herself. The civil war had ended with Serg's death, even though the bloodshed had not.

Even now, she couldn't remember how she had killed Serg. She remembered weeks spent planning, communicating in secret, the terror of being discovered while waiting for the assault on the Residence to distract his guards. The next thing she remembered was Vorkosigan and his soldiers throwing open the doors to the Emperor's chambers. There had been a dizzying moment of awareness when she had suddenly noticed the distant crack of weapons, when she had looked down at her hands and seen the bloodied knife and the body at her feet. She hadn't been able to speak or move.

She remembered Vorkosigan approaching her warily, easing the knife out of her hands. There had been blood on his hands, too. "Well done," he had said to her, as though she were one of his officers. Kareen couldn't remember if she had cried or not. She thought she might have.

They had won the war. Serg was dead, Grishnov murdered by the mob, Vorrutyer captured while trying to escape, summarily tried and condemned within an hour. Gregor was safe. She had kept him safe.

But Kareen couldn't let go of the memories that still colored her waking moments, nor the pain they brought. She couldn't stop living in fear – fear of shadows on the walls, of solitude, of everyone around her from servants and soldiers to the newly named Lord Regent- though they were allies now, though she remembered Ezar's words - _if I should fail,_he had told her the week before he was assassinated, _this is the man you must ask for help in my name. _

She couldn't sleep, because she still saw Serg every time she shut her eyes. When she did sleep she woke alone in the dark, trembling and sweating and thinking he was there in the room, clutching the handle of an imaginary Vorfemme knife and feeling his blood running warm over her fingers, and every time it happened she had to get up and make sure that Gregor was safe.

Kareen tensed, sensing someone nearby. She controlled herself with an effort and turned slowly to see Vorkosigan standing beside her, looking out at the scene.

"He's dead," he said simply. Kareen looked down at the body, hanging lifeless in the middle of the square. All she could feel was a sense of weary relief. Beside her, the Regent's eyes were dark with grief and exhaustion. It was an expression they had both worn often enough in these last days while they fought to rebuild a broken planet, to build alliances that worked, to account for the thousands dead and the missing whom no one had bothered to count. They had both seen too much blood.

In the silence, Kareen took his hand and raised it to her lips. Vorkosigan said nothing- neither of them was given to speaking much these days, for which Kareen was glad. But he reached out to her, touching the old but still livid red mark across her arm.

Kareen drew in a sharp breath, freezing instinctively. He drew back at once, and she returned her face to its normal expression, adjusting the long sleeves of her dress to cover her scars- a skill perfected with long practice.

"You don't need to hide them," he said quietly. "They are wounds of war, milady. Don't be ashamed of what you gave." Kareen said nothing, struggling to keep out the memory that flashed across her eyes- Serg, digging his nails into her arm, laughing when she cried out, and Vorrutyer, smiling, urging him on.

Vorkosigan was looked back to the window, unconsciously rubbing the thin pale line across his jaw. Kareen knew with a chill how he came by that scar, who gave it to him. She knew that she was not the only one plagued by nightmares, who woke in the empty dark with a scream unvoiced upon her lips.

"He's gone," she said, though she felt incapable of offering comfort when she had none. She didn't know whether she was talking about Vorrutyer or Serg, or both. _They are gone, they are the past, they cannot hurt us now._

His eyes on her were sharp, intent, as she raised a hand to his face, tracing his scar. He was right- these too were marks of war, of battles fought with no comrades by your side, no weapons but your own strength, only yourself and your enemy alone in the dark. They were both soldiers, she thought as he took her hand again; both bound to their places by duty, and memories of lost honor.

"Yes. He is."

He drew her closer, brushing his lips lightly upon her wrist as if to repair both the wounds that closed long ago and the ones that didn't. Kareen didn't freeze this time. She rested her head on his shoulder and let him hold her, and somewhere deep inside, she felt something that was broken beginning, slowly, to heal.


End file.
